Too Hot to Handle

by Nancy Warren

  “I see. And does this jeweler have a full workshop?”

  “Yes.”

  She considered the feat he’d proposed to her. Copying someone else’s masterpiece felt like forgery to her. Like trying to rip off the Mona Lisa. The emerald and diamond set had been created by a master of the day. But there was also something exciting about trying to re-create the artistry, using her own methods. No one who knew the original intimately would be fooled for long, but could she copy the original well enough to fool the casual eye?

  “I wonder if we’d be better with synthetic emeralds,” she found herself saying aloud.

  “Lexy, if it’s the money—”

  “No. It’s the color. Synthetic emeralds are often darker. Obviously a jeweler would know right away that the stones were man-made, but if we’re going for visual illusion, then I might be able to pull it off.” Her mind was spinning over possibilities. “I’ll need real diamonds, though.”

  “Absolutely.”

  She glanced at him curiously. “Will you get them back?” Was it worth it to him to invest a fortune on getting revenge?

  “I hope so. But it’s not the most important issue.” He seemed to hear her unspoken question. “I do not like being cheated, and I sure as hell don’t like having people trying to kill me. Grayson pissed me off. If it costs some money to bring the guy down, so be it.”

  “Pretty high moral ground for somebody who made their money from stealing things that didn’t belong to them.”

  He rose, went to the fridge for the wine bottle and topped their glasses. “Oh, come on. You think Wall Street’s not full of crooks? Name a profession that’s never been touched by scandal. Law? Medicine? The clergy? At least I was an honest crook. I only stole from people who could afford to lose things.”

  “Did you need the money?”

  He returned the bottle to the fridge and sat back down before answering.

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “A direct one. Sounds to me like you already come from a wealthy family, probably have a fat trust fund. I’m just asking whether you needed to steal to support yourself.”

  “Not technically.” He picked up the pepper grinder and cranked it, adding spice to chicken that was already perfectly spiced.

  “Okay, I’m curious. Why did you go into the larceny business?”

  He seemed to realize there was nowhere he could go to get away from this conversation and that she wasn’t going to give up. He shot her an irritated glance. “I didn’t want to go into law, politics, finance or any of the other professions that were considered suitable.” He shrugged and gave a wry grin. “It’s the sad plight of the poor little rich boy. He can never be better than his father or whatever ancient relative amassed the fortune in the first place. I didn’t want to follow…I wanted to set my own path.”

  “Really.”

  “I probably would have bummed around for a while and ended up toeing the line eventually, but luckily, when I was alone in the house one weekend, a guy broke in and tried to steal mother’s jewels.” He grinned in memory. “He was good, too. He’d have got away clean if I hadn’t come home late and on my way up to bed heard something. Not even much of a noise, just one of those sounds that don’t belong, you know? So you stop and take notice.”

  It was exactly like when she’d heard Charlie cracking her safe. The sounds hadn’t been loud, simply out of the ordinary. She nodded.

  “Anyhow, I snuck into my parents’ room and he had the safe open and my mother’s jewelry laid out on the bed, all nice and neat, like he was shopping. Naturally, being nineteen and thinking I was one tough dude, I tackled him.”

  He laughed. “The guy was pretty surprised. But he didn’t seem like my idea of a thief. He was intelligent, well-spoken. If you’d passed him in the street you’d have pegged him for a university prof or a scientist or something, never a thief. Well, long story short, I agreed not to call the cops if he’d teach me everything he knew. We were partners for four years before he retired. Then I worked alone for a few years and now I mostly steal things back for people. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, it’s ironic all right. Especially as I’m the one who ended up homeless and dead.”

  “Well, bringing you back to life in the middle of the Diamond Ball, and wearing the necklace that supposedly got you killed, should go a long way to making up for that. As for the studio, I’m sorry it happened. Truly sorry. Did you have insurance?”

  “Yes, but that’s not the point. Of course I can rebuild, but it’s going to take time and will really mess with my schedule.”

  “Right.”

  She rubbed her forehead with her hand. “But there’s no point whining is there? Okay, I’ll make a list of what I’ll need. Maybe Amanda can contact my suppliers and get the gems.”

  “No. My jeweler can source what he doesn’t have in stock.”

  She snorted. “Please yourself. But I guarantee you’ll pay too much.”

  “Understood.”

  “How soon can you get Amanda here?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll get Healey to put her on a commercial flight to Aspen.”

  He walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll get them, Lexy. I promise. We’ll get them.”

  She nodded, looking up. His face was serious and yet she felt the excitement in him. He could tell her all the stories he wanted about being a rebellious teen, and maybe part of that was the truth, but the real reason he’d become a thief, and still continued to operate in the shadows, was that he was hooked on the thrill.

  She caught a hint of his excitement and felt her fingertips tingle. She was going to forge a masterpiece starting tomorrow. She found she could hardly wait to get started.

  Their gazes locked and she felt her breath hitch. She’d been absurdly drawn to this man from the first moment she saw him, knew he felt it, too, but she wasn’t thinking clearly enough right now to be embarking on an affair.

  Then his hand turned, rubbing her shoulder, moving slowly upward to cup her cheek. Abruptly he dropped the hand. “I’d better get back to work. Watch whatever you want on TV. Or there’s some movies and stuff. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  She watched him go, a slightly smug smile pulling at her mouth. She knew why he’d bolted. He wanted her, and he knew he couldn’t have her.

  Damn straight, he couldn’t. Not yet, anyway.

  Of course, she suddenly had all this sexual energy coursing through her body. She supposed she might as well make use of it and get to work herself figuring out how she was going to replicate the Isabella Emeralds.

  “Hey,” she called him back. “I’m going to work tonight, too. I’ll need to study that necklace.”

  “I’ll bring it to you.”

  “And I’ll need that jewelry studio to myself. I don’t want interference.”

  “You’re not much of a team player, are you?”

  “No. I work alone. It’s how I like things.”

  “I also work alone. I guess the next few days, trying to work together and trust each other, should be interesting.”

  “Honey, you and I are never going to be a team.”

  He chuckled. “That sounded very much like a challenge. I have a weakness for challenges.” He turned and went to get her the emeralds. Maybe he thought he was out of hearing range, but she heard him mutter, “And gorgeous smart-mouthed jewelers.”

  10

  “YOU PICK UP STRANGE MEN in bars very often?” Healey asked Amanda over breakfast the next day, a bowl of healthy grains—far more than she could eat, with fresh bananas and frozen blueberries sprinkled on top and a healthy dollop of white stuff that she doubted very much was whipped cream. If she had to eat yogurt she liked it flavored with a lot of fruit. Somehow she thought Healey would disapprove. And she’d better not even mention that she was more a bagel and cream cheese and a quick coffee kind of gal.

  She really didn’t feel like getting a critique on her lifestyle so early in the morning, but his tone d
idn’t sound judgmental, more genuinely curious. She pushed away the cereal and picked up her coffee. At least he had coffee. For a horrible moment she’d feared green tea.

  “No. Not really. I was kind of crazy last night, you know? I really, really needed to get my mind off my problems and find an outlet.”

  A rare grin lit his face. “I’ll be your outlet anytime.”

  He reached past her and pulled a bottle of disgusting green stuff from the fridge that he said was full of spirulina. Which she was pretty certain was a kind of moss.

  He drank right out of the bottle. “You want some?” he asked after he’d taken a few gulps.

  She shuddered. “No, thanks.” His refrigerator featured things like tofu and wheat grass. Organic fruits and vegetables, free-range eggs. No junk food.

  “What happened to the guy who ordered a hamburger in the bar?” she asked in frustration.

  He kissed her shoulder, leaving a green spirulina smudge. “I order the odd hamburger to impress girls like you. Plus, I crave them once in a while.”

  “We are total opposites. I crave healthy food once in a while. But mostly I live on the tasty stuff.”

  At least he had coffee. Free-trade organic blah, blah, blah that needed to be ground in small quantities and put into a French press, but the result was almost worth the effort, she thought, when she got up to make another pot.

  “Want some coffee?”

  “You drink too much caffeine. It’s why you’re so jittery,” he commented.

  “I’m not jittery. I’m in junk food withdrawal.”

  She dug a spoonful of yogurt and berries from the bowl and ate it, trying not to screw up her face at the sour burst of yogurt. She put down the spoon.

  “Someone close to me died. Well, we were all close to her, those people I was with last night? It was sort of a wake. We were all immersed in grief and sharing our stories and pictures and suddenly I couldn’t stand it anymore. I didn’t want sympathy, I didn’t want friends. I wanted sweaty sex with a stranger.”

  He was looking at her almost as though he understood.

  “I wanted to disappear for a while. Have you ever wanted to be invisible?”

  He chuckled, like he was having a private joke. “Frequently.”

  They chatted for a while until she’d made a respectable dent in her breakfast and finished her coffee.

  “Well,” she said, “I guess I should be going.” She never knew how to exit gracefully from a one-nighter. Did she leave her number? Ask for his? Play it cool and say nothing? How did anybody have a night of intimacy and passion of the kind they’d shared and not want to see each other again?

  He looked at her almost as though he was wondering the same thing. “What are you up to today?”

  She shrugged. “I should probably start looking for a job.”

  “Or you could hang around for a couple of days.”

  “Don’t you have to work?”

  “I’ve got a pretty flexible schedule.” He rubbed a hand along her shoulder, above the sailboat. “I’d like to spend some time with you.”

  And like that, her burden lifted a little. After Lexy’s death she’d felt so unbelievably alone. Now, even for a short time, she had somebody who cared what she did all day. Who wanted her.

  “Okay. Yeah. Sure.”

  It was only for sex, but right now? Sex was about all she had to give.

  “So, what do you want to do today?”

  She was hovering between responses. Did she most want to go shopping for junk food? Because if she was staying here she couldn’t survive on nuts and berries, or did she want to take him to see some art that would blow his mind—or did she just want to drag him back to bed? She hadn’t remotely made up her mind when his phone rang.

  He checked the display and excused himself to the bedroom to take the call.

  Her stomach did a weird dippy thing. Secret calls could only mean other women in his life. Not that she, a one-night hookup, was in any position to complain, but she’d felt like he maybe wanted to start something with her. Who’d said anything about it being exclusive?

  She heard him arguing. And then he came out, holding the phone.

  “Look,” she said, “if my being here is messing anything up for you…I can leave.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not that.” He sank down heavily on the chair beside hers and took her hand. He looked so serious he was starting to freak her out. “I want you to know that last night was…amazing. And I wouldn’t have changed a thing. You need to believe that.”

  “Okay.” What the hell was he getting at? It was over? He had a girlfriend? Sure, she got it. Why not show her the door and be done with it? This hand-holding thing was a little strange.

  And he still had his phone open.

  “I’m a big girl, Healey.”

  “Okay. I know. There’s someone on the phone who wants to talk to you.”

  He said into the phone, “Put her on.”

  She threw her hands in the air and backed away. “Oh, no. I’m not talking to her. You got woman trouble, you deal with it on your own. Don’t get me involved.” She looked around for her purse. “It was a hookup. We had fun. I’m out of here.”

  “Amanda, it’s not what you think.”

  “Sure, okay, whatever.” Where were her shoes?

  “Amanda, stop. It’s Alexandra Drake on the phone.”

  The air went out of her lungs and she felt the room sway. “What?”

  “Lexy. It’s Lexy on the phone. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Lexy’s dead,” she replied. And how the hell did he know about Lexy? She was sure she’d never mentioned the woman’s name.

  “No. She’s not.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve got to get out of here. This is too weird.”

  He grabbed her arm, not hard, but firmly enough to get her attention. “Please, just take the phone.”

  He held it up but she shook her head. “Amanda?” The voice came faint and familiar. “Amanda?”

  She grabbed the phone and plastered it to her ear. “Lexy? Oh, my God, is it really you? You’re alive?”

  “Yes. Alive and unhurt. I’m so sorry I couldn’t call before. I’m fine.”

  “But…” She put her other hand to her head and collapsed on the couch before she fainted. “I don’t even know what to ask first. I…We had a wake.”

  “You had a wake? For me?”

  “Yeah.” She laughed shakily. “Me and Carl and well, you know, the usual bunch. We met at Emo’s and had a wake for you. Last night.” She wiped her cheek, not realizing she was crying until the back of her hand came away wet. “And I thought about you and how I should have stayed that night and helped you. I…What happened?”

  “It’s kind of a long story. And I’m going to tell you everything, but I can’t tell you on the phone. Look, I really need your help. I’m in Colorado. I need—”

  “Colorado?”

  “I know it sounds crazy. But I need you to come here and help me with a project.”

  “In Colorado?”

  “Yes. Today. Healey, the guy with the phone, he’ll get you a ticket. You’ve met Healey, right?”

  “Oh, yes. We’ve met.”

  “Good, so—”

  “Wait a minute. Why didn’t you call me on my cell?”

  “It’s not secure. Amanda, criminals burned down my place and I’m pretty sure they murdered a woman. We need to stay safe. Healey’s there to protect you.”

  “Huh, is that what he was doing?” She glared at Healey, who was standing across the room, watching her.

  “I know this is a shock.”

  “How do I even know you’re really Lexy?” she snapped.

  “Don’t you recognize my voice?”

  “Not enough. Tell me something about me that no one knows.”

  “You’ve got a sailboat tattooed on your back.”

  She thought of Healey tracing the pattern with his tongue. Yeah, that was a real secret.
“Something else.”

  “Um, your middle name is Jocelyn and you never tell anyone that. Ah, you’re allergic to pistachios, when your mom threatened to throw you out of the house if you got your nose pierced, you got your nose pierced. Oh, and you got the ring in your eyebrow when a drummer called Stephan broke up with you and went back to Frankfurt.”

  “Amsterdam.” But that was exactly the kind of mistake a friend would make.

  “Really? I thought it was Frankfurt. Okay, I remember his band was called Bionic Piss.”

  Amanda snorted with laughter. “What was I thinking?”

  A familiar giggle echoed back. “I have no idea. So, did I pass the test?”

  She glanced at Healey. Right now she trusted nothing that he was involved with. “Not so fast. I have some questions for you. What’s your father’s name?”

  “Jed Dabrowski.”

  “Name the last commission you refused.”

  “Easy. Two weeks ago. The skull and crossbones wedding rings. So banal.”

  “What’s your favorite sexual position?”

  “Amanda, I’m not alone.”

  “You put me through hell, Lexy.” The pain was still there. Weird. She wanted to believe Lexy was okay but on some level couldn’t. “Besides, anybody could find out all that other stuff. This is more personal.”

  “I am never going drinking with you again.”

  Amanda was feeling better and better. She still remembered the night she and Lexy had gone for a drink after a late night at work. Somebody had left behind a sex manual and the two of them had looked through it and discussed favorite positions. Laughed at some of the names. “Quit stalling.”

  “Could you leave the room for a second?” she heard Lexy ask someone. “Hell, no,” was the amused male reply.